If we want to see everyone being able to communicate freely (and thus without spying), that means creating software for potentially billions of people. The Tor Project, for example, has been approched1 by companies who wish to integrate Tor in products with a 100 million users. Does such growth inevitably mean getting completely eaten by capitalism? Is there a “proper” way to work at such a scale?
This discussion round aims at investigating the problems that come along with developing free/libre opensource software for a large audience. Till what point can the near-free reproduction of software save us from capitalist accumulation? Can we apply technologies to uphold values like free speech on a universal scale without compromising adherence to decentral and non-hierarchical organising? What practical measures can we take to prevent our projects from being co-opted? Won't such measures leave us marginalised?
This will be an open discussion, please share your thoughts and experiences, so we can address these questions collectively.
1. https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2014-June/000563.html